Ocean Conservancy

Though the Conservancy is broadly concerned with ocean-based conservation, including ocean acidification, coastal cleanups, and fishing, its focus has shifted towards climate change at least since 2019. ² The organization has announced the goal to reduce global carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050.

History

In 1971, marketing expert Bill Kardash attended the annual International Whaling Commission conference. There he supposedly had a chance encounter with music legend John Denver who attended to present a petition to stop whaling. Kardash later became an activist environmentalist, and the next year he founded the Delta Corporation, which would eventually become Ocean Conservancy. ¹

During its early years, Ocean Conservancy was primarily focused on opposing whaling and engaged in marketing campaigns to raise public awareness. In 1982, the International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling, and the Conservancy began to broaden its goals to general ocean wildlife protection. In the 1980s, the Conservancy launched the Marine Sanctuary Program to lobby for the establishment of coastal wildlife preserves. In 1986, the Conservancy organized the first International Coastal Cleanup,¹ an international volunteer effort which has attracted a claimed 12 million volunteers to clean up 220 million pounds of waste over the last 30 years. ³

Funding

In 2019, Ocean Conservancy received nearly all its $28.7 million in revenue from donations, with 62% coming from individuals, 22% from foundations, and 14% from corporations. The organization spent $4.4 million on fundraising and membership development. ²

In 2018, Ocean Conservancy paid $174,000⁴ for digital fundraising to Revolution Messaging, a marketing company founded by Scott Goldstein, the external online director of Obama for America, which became the PAC Organizing for Action. ⁵⁶ Revolution Messaging has worked for the campaigns of Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Beto O’Rourke (D-TX). ⁷

Lobbying

Ocean Conservancy engages in lobbying to support favored environmentalist policies, mostly concerning the establishment and continuity of federally protected wildlife preserves. From 2012 to 2019, lobbying spending has steadily increased from $224,000 with five lobbyists to $926,000 with fourteen lobbyists. As of July 2020, it spent $367,000 lobbying in the year. ⁸⁹

Though Ocean Conservancy does not directly contribute to political candidates, its leadership and employees tend to donate thousands of dollars each election cycle. In the 2020 cycle, $4,108 has been donated exclusively to Democratic candidates, with presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) receiving $1,324. In 2016, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (D-NY) received $4,058. ¹⁰

Climate Change

In Ocean Conservancy’s 2019 annual report, climate change was declared the organization’s primary focus. ² Its policy goal is to limit global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial temperatures, which requires bringing the earth to net-zero carbon-emissions output by 2050. ¹¹ To this end, Ocean conservancy advocates making climate change the centerpiece of a “blue-green foreign policy” and for the United States to reenter the Paris Climate Agreement. ¹²

Opposition to the Trump Administration

Lawsuit

In January 2018, Ocean Conservancy and Earthjustice announced they were suing the federal government over an alleged violation of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). ¹³

In June 2017, the Department of Commerce added 39 additional days to the legal fishing period for red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. Ocean Conservancy filed a FOIA to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) regarding records pertaining to the fishing extension. After NOAA failed to reply in the mandated 20-day window for FOIA requests, the lawsuit was filed. ¹³

In December 2017, the federal district court of the District of Columbia ordered the Department of Commerce, NOAA, and the National Marine Fisheries Service to halt the fishing extension. Additionally, the district judge retained jurisdiction over the red snapper fishing season in 2018. ¹³

National Environmental Policy Act

In July 2020, the Conservancy criticized the Trump administration for rolling back enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires federal agencies to consider environmental impacts on all activity. ¹⁴

New England Marine National Monument

In June 2020, the Conservancy criticized the Trump administration for permitting commercial fishing in 4,913 square miles of water constituting the Northeastern Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the coast of New England. In its proclamation, the administration argued that the region could sustain manageable fishing levels without a noticeable environmental impact. ¹⁵ In response, Conservancy CEO Janis Searles Jones accused the administration of exploiting Black Lives Matter demonstrations and COVID-19 to prevent scrutiny. ¹⁶

National Ocean Policy

In June 2019, the Conservancy criticized the Trump administration for rescinding the National Ocean Policy, a set of guidelines established by the Obama administration in 2010 to prioritize the preservation of ocean wildlife in federal policy. President Donald Trump altered the policy’s language to prioritize the “economic, security, and environmental interest of the U.S.” ¹⁷

Criticism

“Stemming the Tide” report

In September 2015, Ocean Conservancy released the “Stemming the Tide” report along with the World Wildlife Fund, US State Department and others to outline strategies to clean up plastic waste in the oceans. A month later, an open letter signed by over 200 nonprofits, government agencies, and scientists criticized Ocean Conservancy’s report, arguing that its proposed waste management policies were outdated. Specifically, the letter condemned an overreliance on burning waste, a focus on promoting Western-based multinational companies at the expense of Asian countries, and an acceptance of rising plastic levels in the oceans. ¹⁸

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

In July 2012, a group of environmentalist nonprofits, including Ocean Conservancy, The Nature Conservancy, Oxfam, the Environmental Defense Fund, the National Audubon Society, and the National Wildlife Federation issued a report laying out a plan for how BP should pay for the damages caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The report recommended a $500 million restoration of the Louisiana coast, a $165 million restoration of Mobile Bay, and the purchase of large tracts of coastal land in Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Florida for indefinite conservation, among other initiatives. ¹⁹

In response, a representative of then-Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) said, “the environmentalists’ report is so out of touch that I put my copy in the recycling bin.” He accused the organizations of using the crisis as an opportunity to fund “pet projects” and fulfill political agendas. Louisiana State University law professor Edward P. Richards also criticized the plan for spending money on regions which saw little impact from the spill. ²⁰

Sandra Whitehouse Consulting Contract

Since September 2008, according to her LinkedIn account and records from federal nonprofit tax filings, Sandra Thornton Whitehouse, the wife of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, has received contracting work totaling $3.1 million from two environmental nonprofits. ²¹

Tax documents for September 2008 through June 2022 from the Ocean Conservancy show that for every year since the reporting period ending June 2010 Sandra Whitehouse (or her consulting firm, Ocean Wonks LLC) was one of the nonprofit’s five highest paid consultants. Total payments during that period equaled $2,628,654. (Whithouse’s LinkedIn account shows she became a senior policy advisor for the group in September 2008, but tax records do not list her as one of the five highest paid consultants for the year ending September 2009. She may have been paid money during that year that is in addition to the previously mentioned $2.6 million but fell outside the publicly-reportable “top five highest paid” consultants.) ^{22 23}

In May 2023, the Daily Caller reported that while his wife was working for the Ocean Conservancy, Sen. Whitehouse had “blogged for Ocean Conservancy, spoke at an event it co-hosted, and sat on a panel an organization director moderated.” ²⁴

Additionally, according to the Daily Caller, Whitehouse introduced “at least two dozen bills” relating to ocean research and left leaning ocean causes. These included a 2021 bill to “improve data collection and monitoring of the Great Lakes, oceans, bays, estuaries, and coasts,” a 2019 proposal to “prohibit oil and gas leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf,” and the Ocean Conservancy-endorsed Save Our Seas Act 2.0 in 2020. ²⁴

In 2020, one of the Ocean Conservancy’s executives publicly thanked Whitehouse in a blog post for his “continued leadership” regarding the Save Our Seas measure. ²⁴

In addition to the Ocean Conservancy contract, Sandra Whitehouse was also one of the top-five highest paid contractors to AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles from July 2015 to July 2018. Tax records for the environmental nonprofit show a cumulative total of $489,704 paid by AltaSea to Sandra Whitehouse during the period. ^{25 23}

Sheldon Whitehouse became a U.S. Senator in January 2007. Sandra Whitehouse received her PhD in marine biology in 1994. As of May 2023, her LinkedIn account does not list employment prior to 2008. ²³

A speaker program for a May 2012 symposium states she had been an “environmental consultant” for the prior 15 years (i.e.: back to 2007), with “clients” including the Rhode Island General Assembly. As late as March 2004, an individual named “Sandra Whitehouse” appeared to be employed as a member of the policy staff of the Rhode Island House of Representatives. She and two other individuals represented the policy office in “House Policy Staff Briefings” before the Rhode Island House Committee on Separation of Powers. ^{23 26 27}

Sen. Whitehouse Investigation Request by FACT

In February 2025, ethics watchdog group Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) placed a request to Senate Select Committee on Ethics Chairman James Lankford (R-OK) and Vice Chairman Chris Coons (D-DE) to investigate Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) over accusations that he “violated the Senate ethics rules on conflicts of interest” by voting on legislation that may have benefited Ocean Conservancy which also pays his wife Sandra through consulting firm Ocean Wonks LLC. ²⁸ According to LinkedIn, Sandra Whitehouse has served as president of OceanWonks LLC since 2017, while listing her as a Senior Policy Advisor for Ocean Conservancy since 2008. ²¹ Data from USASpending.gov appears to show that Ocean Conservancy has received over $14.2 million in federal grants between 2008 and 2025, with nearly $7 million being through two grants received in 2024 alone. ²⁹ The two grants in question were a $5.2 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and another $1.7 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). According to a Fox News article, the NOAA grant was funded through the Biden Administration‘s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) while the EPA grant was funded through the agency’s annual appropriations bill, both of which Sen. Whitehouse voted in favor of. In addition, the article claims that tax documents show Sandra Whitehouse has received $2,686,800 from Ocean Conservancy between 2010 and 2025 either directly or through Ocean Wonks LLC. ²⁸ According to FACT executive director Kendra Arnold, “While these two grants alone appear to be a conflict of interest, it is even more egregious in the context of Senator Whitehouse’s long history of working on legislation being lobbied for by organizations tied to his wife.” ²⁸